UNM's 2018 top-10 research features

The University of New Mexico's Office of the Vice President for Research and the University Communication and Marketing (UCAM) Department annually compile a list of its top-10 research features during the course of the year. Below is the list of UNM's top-10 research features for 2018. The stories are in random order.

UNM scientists find widespread ocean anoxia as cause for past mass extinction
For decades, scientists have conducted research centered around the five major mass extinctions that have shaped the world we live in. The extinctions date back more than 450 million years with the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction to the deadliest extinction, the Late Permian extinction 250 million years ago that wiped out over 90 percent of species.

UNM researchers help redefine Grand Canyon’s rock layers
Nearly five decades ago, in the late 1970s, was the last time a new formation was discovered and defined in the Grand Canyon with the discovery of the Surprise Canyon Formation. Now, a team of scientists, including The University of New Mexico’s Karl Karlstrom and Laura Crossey, have studied one of the last Grand Canyon strata to be dated – the Sixtymile Formation.

UNM researchers seek novel path to understanding Alzheimer’s disease
Imagine leaving your home to go on a walk around the block, a familiar path you’ve walked many times. After a few steps into your walk, you look around and begin to feel like you don’t know where you are - nothing looks familiar. For aging adults, experiencing spatial disorientation - the inability to recognize places and find one’s way from one location to another - could be an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease.

UNM, USF scientists find stable sea levels during last interglacial
Visualize the following: The Earth’s climate swings between cold glacial and warm interglacial periods; the last glacial interval was about 20,000 years ago; sea level was about 126 meters (413 feet) below modern sea level at that time; and the Holocene, which represents the last 12,000 years of climatic change, is an interglacial period..

Domesticated dogs weren’t Man’s only best friend
For centuries dogs and humans have developed close relationships, that in many cases, have solidified each other as family. The close bond between humans and domesticated dogs can be traced back to some of New Mexico’s earliest settlers. But what interests anthropologists at The University of New Mexico is whether or not these dogs were in fact what we consider dogs.

UNM researcher explores influence of ancient humans on mammal body size
Researchers have demonstrated that mammal biodiversity loss, a major conservation concern today, is part of a long-term trend lasting at least 125,000 years. As archaic humans, Neanderthals and other hominin species migrated out of Africa, what followed was a wave of size-biased extinction in mammals on all continents that intensified over time.